


The Other Side

by skeletonwrites



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/M, jurdan - Freeform, jurdan baby, loml
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 16:48:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17450702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletonwrites/pseuds/skeletonwrites
Summary: IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE WICKED KING, I HIGHLY ADVISE YOU NOT READ THIS. There are spoilers, and there are things you won’t quite understand if you haven’t read TWK.





	The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE WICKED KING, I HIGHLY ADVISE YOU NOT READ THIS. There are spoilers, and there are things you won’t quite understand if you haven’t read TWK.

The pregnancy had been hard enough. Pregnancies where faerie children were concerned were even more delicate than those of mortal children. A faerie babe in a mortal body? It became more difficult by tenfold. Where Jude Duarte was concerned, the baby growing in her womb had taken all of her energy, all of her patience. The constant fussing of her husband was driving her up the wall, and you need not get her started on being on bed rest for the last several months. She couldn’t take it.

When her water finally broke, the first emotion she’d felt was relief. Relief that the baby was coming and soon, after she healed, she could be back doing the things she loved. She would get to train with a sword again, strategize with the army commander, continuing lessons with Oak on what it meant to be a prince. What it would mean to be King when his time came, which if Cardan passed it off to him when he came of age, was only three years away.

The second thing that Jude felt when her water broke was that something was horribly, catastrophically wrong. To begin with, it was too soon by a handful of weeks. Her hands immediately went to her stomach and she let out a startled cry, her eyes searching the room wildly as though her husband would have heard her and immediately appeared. She reached for the wall, yanking on one of the bells by her desk to alert the staff that she needed assistance – something Cardan had installed in her office for emergencies almost the moment he found out she was pregnant. It didn’t take long for a servant to scuffle in with tea, and Jude shook her head rapidly.

“I need you to find the king immediately and send for healers,” she gritted out through her teeth. The servant dropped the tray of tea and turned on her heels, running as fast as she could and shouting down the hall that the queen was in distress. Had Jude been healthy, her eyes would be rolling, but she couldn’t shake the distinct feeling that the baby wasn’t okay, and something was horribly awry in her body.

“Jude?” Cardan was in the room moments later, crouching next to her. His feet slapped against the wet floor where her water had broken, and upon seeing the liquid on the silver tip of his boot, she realized it was blood. She hadn’t yet noticed because she was dressed in all black.

“Something is desperately wrong, I-“ a blood curdling scream interrupted her words and erupted from her throat as white hot pain coursed through her, something bigger than any contraction she’d been anticipating and prepared for. Jude could feel it, deep within her bones, that her baby was in peril. She knew that labor would be difficult, that bringing her baby into this world would be the hardest thing she’d done in her life. What she didn’t anticipate was feeling like her life own life was barely hanging by a thread.

Cardan swept his wife into his arms, rushing her to their chambers where he deposited her carefully on the bed. Healers were already milling about, two streaming into the room behind the king. Tears ran down Jude’s face, soaking Cardan’s tunic as she pressed her face into his chest. Another sob shook her to her core as another wave of pain shot through her nerves. Jude could feel the pain on every inch of her skin, down every millimeter of her body. Every nerve ending was on fire, was ripping from her body one by one. Cardan’s tunic tore at the sleeves where she gripped, silently begging him not to leave her.

Attempting to stay strong for his wife despite his fears, the king stayed with his queen, holding her hand and kissing her temples. Healers cut her pants off, and Cardan thought he was going to pass out when he saw just how much blood stained his wife’s skin. Deep, dark red coated the insides of her legs, all the way down to her boots, and when they tugged her them off, drops of blood spilled out onto the white bedding.

On her other side, a healer appeared with a few vials of potions, holding them to her lips. She drank, willing to do anything to ease her pain and save her baby, despite not wanting to have taken anything originally. Now, however, she begged to every god she could think of that her baby survive this mess. Take her if you must, but give her baby the life it deserved with it’s all too deserving father.

The potion merely brought the pain from a ten to a nine and a half. It wasn’t much better, but as the healers commanded her to push, she did. Pushed and pushed and pushed until a shrieking cry filled the room. Cardan’s eyes, however, never left Jude’s face. Through every cry of pain, every tear, he kissed her temples, her knuckles, the ruby ring he’d returned to her when he’d asked her to be his queen when their relationship was still full of snark and that drop of hatred. When they finally heard that cry, he pressed a firm kiss to her wan lips, brushing her tears from her cheeks. Cardan’s eyes glittered like tar, lined with the silver of tears that he couldn’t contain. _We should have called truce long before this._

“You did it, my love,” he whispered into her hair, thumb stroking over her cheekbones. Tears of his own were falling as he held his wife, rocking her in a soothing way that had her full lips stretching into a slight smile. _Kiss me until I am sick of it._

“Cardan,” she whispered, resting her hand on his wrist, but he shook his head. “ _Tell me that you hate me_ ,” he had begged her all those years ago. She had obliged then, breathing the words into his soul though they both knew it wasn’t the truth. “ _I want to tell you so many lies.”_

“Don’t speak, Jude, dear. They’re going to get the potions to heal you.” His eyes roved over her body, how her skin seemed to get paler by the second. The mass amount of blood that occupied the bed was pooling on top of the duvet, dripping over the side of the bed and splashing across the floor. With shaking hands, he pulled her into his lap properly, kissing her forehead. “You’ll be okay.”

“Cardan,” she said again, squeezing his wrist so pathetically that his heart cracked. Gone was her iron strength that had pinned him to a chair with a knife to his throat. Jude’s voice was breathy and hoarse, and tears continued to streak down her temples. When he looked into her eyes, they weren’t quite as bright as they usually were. Everything about his Jude seemed to be fading. Her coloring, her light, her life. He could hear how shallow her breath had become, could feel her weak heartbeat his fingertips.

“Jude,” his voice cracked as more tears fell from his face, dropping onto her cheeks and mingling with her own. “Jude Duarte Greenbriar don’t you dare leave me.” Every word that the king spoke, his voice got smaller, weaker, more broken. Jude reached up, pale fingers brushing through his hair and down his cheekbones. “You will be okay. You will be okay. You’re going to be fine.”

“My love,” her voice was so small and weak, had he not buried his face in her neck he might not have heard it. “I want…” A faint smile graced her lips, that he almost missed, but he pulled back to look at her as she paused her words. Jude’s thumb brushed over his lips as she inhaled shakily, remembering the first time Cardan had said he loved her, in his own Cardan way. The words he had spoken time and time again when she infuriated him, when she would pop off that she hated him just to get a reaction out of him.

“You’ll be okay, Jude. You’ll be okay.” He looked around the room wildly, only to find a healer holding the baby, the others simply standing and staring at the floor as their queen died in his arms. It was then that Cardan realized she was beyond help. She was beyond fixing. She would not be okay. Jude Duarte was going to die.

“I want…to tell you so many…lies,” she breathed out, a ghost of a smile on her lips as the light in her eyes completely extinguished, her gaze that had been locked on his face going completely blank as she stopped seeing. Her hand on his lips went limp, dragging down his chin and neck. Beneath the fingers that graced her neck, he felt her heart stop beating. _I want to tell you so many lies._

“WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?!” He screamed, tugging her body closer to his as he continued to sob, her blood warm and sticky the more it seeped through his trousers and to his skin. “SHE IS YOUR QUEEN!” _Marry me. Become the Queen of Elfhame._ The healers in the room merely shook their heads. _I’ll marry you._

“I am so sorry, Your Highness. She is beyond our h-“

“SHE IS YOUR _QUEEN_!” He shouted again voice cracking and utterly broken, dropping his face into her neck. Cardan sobbed. For the first time that he could remember, he felt the most lost, broken, and ruined than he had ever felt. He felt a boiling hatred in his blood for being the reason she had been with child. What was the use of his magic if he couldn’t save his wife? What was the point if he was unable to save the woman that changed him in the best ways, that challenged him? From their very first kiss, the way the dagger had dug into his neck, she was always catching him off guard, making his heart flutter. “ _You really do want me. And you hate it_ ,” she had said, just before their lips touched for the first time. _I want to tell you so many lies._

Her hair stuck to his wet cheeks. Jude’s skin seemed to get colder by the minute. In a desperate attempt, he pulled the duvet around her, rubbing her arms as his chest cracked open and his heart shattered. Cardan Greenbriar stay bent over his wife’s lifeless body, rocking her and doing everything in his power to keep her warm. “Jude,” he whispered into her ear, her name over and over like a prayer. “I am so sorry, my love. My queen. I’m so sorry I did this to you.” _Let us be wed until we wish for it to be otherwise, and the crown has passed from our hands._

It felt like ages, that he stay with her, weeping her name and apologies into her ear that she would never hear. It could have been a life time, because by the time a hand touched his elbow and he snapped his head up, her body was cold.

“Cardan,” the Bomb spoke softly, and his eyes fixed on her face. Her white hair was wild, her eyes red from crying. He supposed that his own eyes looked like that: bloodshot, puffy. His face was splotchy with grief.

“I killed her. I killed my wife,” his voice was raw, as though he’d been screaming for hours. Maybe he had been. Maybe he had been cursing himself for long enough that his voice was nearly gone. Maybe he’d been apologizing to Jude for so long that he had no voice left. _I want to tell you so many lies_. He could only hear the blazing truth of what he’d done to her, now.

“You have a daughter,” the Bomb said softly, not affirming his beliefs, but not brushing away his feelings either. Something snapped in Cardan then, and his face crumpled. A daughter. He had a _daughter_. He stayed completely still as the Roach lifted Jude’s body from his lap, his tears never ceasing to fall. The limp nature of her body sent another sob tearing through him, the way her neck dangled back, her eyes still frozen and staring. Eyes that he had spent so much time gazing into, eyes he’d spent time trying to catch just to hold her attention for a single moment. Her hair – her long, beautiful hair that he had tangled his fingers in over and over, had braided while she slept against his chest.

When the healer approached, he shifted where he sat, his clothing stiff from all the blood. She held a bundle of blankets in her arms, and terrified, Carden stay frozen as she passed the small babe to him, his heart breaking in half. The tiny baby girl in the blankets blinked up at him, the eyes unmistakably those of his queen. _This is an absolutely terrible idea,_ he had said the first night they shared any sort of intimacy. At the time, it was. But looking back, being with Jude was the best idea he’d ever had. Cardan couldn’t help but wonder how he was ever going to feel safe, sound, or even remotely okay again.

“Jude,” his voice broke again as he leaned his forehead down, resting it against his daughters. When he inhaled, through the intoxicating scent that babies seemed to carry, he could smell her, smell Jude. He He could smell her warmth, hear her laughter ringing between his ears. The presence, the wrath, the joy that had been Jude Duarte seemed to hang on every memory that he could muster. When he tried to think of something happy that happened before he’d met Jude, he came up short. When he tried to imagine a happy memory that would ever come after her, he was at a loss. So Cardan Greenbriar wept and wept for his lost queen, and her final words to him that she didn’t have to say. _I love you._

 _ _And is there a god up there? ‘So where does he hide?  
__ _ _Cause the devil is raging inside my mind.__  
And is there a moment where it all makes sense?  
When saying goodbye doesn’t feel like the end?  
Sometimes I can’t help blaming you  
For leaving me here, what am I supposed to do?  
There’s plenty of women, there’s drinking, there’s drugs  
But we both know that won’t be enough.  
‘Cause I see you in the daytime, and I hear you at night  
There’s a pale imitation burnt in my eyes  
I don’t want to be here, I don’t know what to do  
Sometimes I’d rather be dead, at least then I’m with you.  
Amen. Amen. Amen. 

__Amen - Amber Run._ _


End file.
